


Wildflowers, Roses, Honeysuckle

by orphan_account



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Asexual Dustin Henderson, Asexual Steve Harrington, Bodily Autonomy, Boys Being Boys, Brother-Sister Relationships, Declarations Of Love, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, Fluff, Friendship, Gender Dysphoria, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, No Porn, POV Alternating, Pining, Roommates, Sincerity, Snark, So many tropes, Trans Billy Hargrove, Tropes, god they're dumb, hanahaki support group, just so much pining, sensible lesbians
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2020-12-31 19:27:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21150959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Both Steve and Billy start coughing up flowers and both insist that, "No, shut up, he couldn't possibly like me like that," while at the same time refusing to get the surgery to fix it.And Billy thinks Steve can't love him because he's trans. And Steve thinks Billy can't love him because he's ace.Turns out they're both wrong.Now if only they could stop being dumb and actually talk about it before it literally kills them.





	1. You're an idiot and I hate you (Gardenia)

**Author's Note:**

> So… I realized that there aren't any Harringrove Hanahaki disease fics, not that I've seen anyway, so I just had to do something about it. 
> 
> Also, I've got playlists up on spotify for this fic! There's one for Billy and Steve [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4H9lRZwSc4yzQY1zm5nNy0), one for Will and Mike [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/00Ljy4ozkscvwO8AvPgFy6) and one for Max and Eleven [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7uOOTybbRsP4XbWTbKwGrE). 
> 
> And thanks to thenervousduck for cheer-reading the first chapter! You're lovely. :)
> 
> I really hope you like this fic and please leave a comment if you do!

\--- 

_ Hanahaki disease is a disease of the soul made physical. It causes the afflicted to cough up flowers if they experience unrequited love or love they think is unrequited. _

_ There are four stages to Hanahaki disease, typically. _

_ Stage One: The afflicted starts to cough uncontrollably. _

_ Stage Two: The afflicted starts to cough up flower petals; flowers start growing in the lungs and it starts to become difficult to breathe. _

_ Stage Three: The afflicted begins coughing up fully formed flowers and oftentimes blood. The afflicted can become tired and lethargic and will most certainly suffer from headaches and dizziness as well as general shortness of breath. _

_ Stage Four: Stage four is the final stage of the disease and is often fatal. The flowers the afflicted has been coughing up grow roots and these roots can and often do pierce through the tissue of the lungs. This is usually how the disease claims its' victims. However, if this does not happen the flowers will continue to spread and multiply until the afflicted chokes to death. _

_ There is only one medical course of treatment for Hanahaki disease - having the flowers (and thus the feelings that go with them) surgically removed, though by the time stage four is reached it is often too late for surgical intervention. _

_ The only other remedy for the disease is for the afflicted to confess their love and to have that love honestly and truthfully returned in kind. _

_ Hanahaki disease can affect all people, of all ages, all genders, all races and all socio-economic backgrounds. It is very common and has nothing to do with an individual's strength or weakness either physically or emotionally. _

_ The type of flower the afflicted coughs up typically varies from person to person and can have floriographic meaning, personal meaning or a mix of the two, depending. _

_ _ -f__ _ _rom "Hanahaki and You" a pamphlet often handed out in high school health classes, written by Heather+Thyme Books. _ _

\---

The really sad thing is that this isn't even the first time Steve's had Hanahaki disease; the first time was Nancy after she dumped him and he just couldn't get over it. But he was reasonable about it that time. That time it only took about a week of him coughing up delicate little white petals and one conversation to convince him to get the surgery to fix it. 

It didn't even take much convincing, mostly Robin had just said, "You're getting those out, right?" the first time he showed them to her and he replied almost instantly with, "Oh, yeah, definitely."

This time it's different. This time he's been hiding it, coughing into his elbow and swallowing, pretending he doesn't look paler than usual and using that little blue inhaler every time he thinks Robin isn't looking. Those little blue inhalers are only ever used for two things - if somebody has asthma and if somebody has flowers and Robin for damn sure knows Steve doesn't have asthma. They've been best friends since the eleventh grade, that's five years, so she _ knows _ him. Well enough that he long since should have trusted her enough to mention this. But he hasn't. It's been weeks and he hasn't said a word so she decides if he's going to make her force the issue then she will. 

She corners him one morning after he starts coughing so bad he has to stop doing the dishes, the coughs wracking his entire body and making him shake. She corners him quite literally, pushing him up into the corner of the kitchen of their tiny, crappy, on campus apartment. She says nothing to him, just glares until he says, "Can I help you?" 

"Who is it, Steve?" 

Sweat breaks out on his forehead. "Who is what?" 

"Don't play dumb, it's not cute. Who're the flowers for?" 

Steve swallows thickly, his Adam's apple bobbing with the effort. "Um, no one?" 

"Steven." 

Steve makes a face and swats at her weakly. "Don't call me Steven!" He coughs again and his cheeks puff up just enough to make him look like a chipmunk. "You know it's not my name!" he says, voice only slightly muffled but entirely ridiculous.

"Spit," Robin demands.

Steve rolls his eyes but does as instructed, spitting into his hand four large, blue flower petals. 

"Gross! I meant into the sink, dingus!" Robin reprimands, causing him to sigh softly and roll his eyes again. He sticks his hand in the sink, washing himself off as Robin watches. The petals and spit swirl down the drain and Robin thinks, _ Good, there isn't any blood yet, that means there's still time. _

"You're thinking about them now, aren't you?" she asks. "We both know you only start coughing when you're thinking of them." 

Steve opens his mouth to answer her when the door to Billy's room cracks open and Steve's head whips towards it like its' on a swivel and this is what he's been waiting for all morning. Billy, for the most part, doesn't seem to notice this. He just nods at the two of them with a yawn, eyes still half closed. Robin can smell the day-old sweat on his Metallica t-shirt and it makes her nose crinkle.

"Morning," Billy says sleepily as he grabs an apple from the bowl on the counter. He bites the apple, holding it in his mouth as he digs a black leather bracelet out of his pocket and sloppily snaps it on. He has no idea that Steve's watching him like he'd give anything to be that apple but Steve's practically salivating with it, his lips are parted and everything, the poor fool. Less than subtly, Robin reaches over and pokes Steve in the chin, making him close his mouth. 

Billy, thank god, doesn't see this either. He just nods and waves vaguely at them, apple still in his mouth, as he heads out the door. 

Steve starts coughing the second Billy's gone, spitting more big, blue petals into the sink then reaching for his inhaler. Once he's done he looks up at Robin. "What?" he asks, like she somehow might still not know who the flowers are for at this point. Like she could possibly ever be that dumb. 

"_ Oh my god _," Robin breathes. She slaps her hand over her face. "No."

She hears Steve breathe out heavily but he doesn't say anything. It's as much of an admission as she knows she's going to get. 

"Steve, you poor dumb idiot," she says. 

This is so, so much worse than Nancy. 

And they are so, so, _ so _ screwed.

\---

_ The word hanahaki comes from the Japanese words hana meaning flower and hakimasu meaning to throw up. _

_ \--- _

Billy's passing by the campus flower shop after class when he gets the idea - he could give Steve a bouquet. He's never been good with words, but he always excelled at floriography in school. He could let the flowers do the talking for him.

He steps inside without thinking too hard about it and begins picking out which flowers he wants, what he wants to say. He starts with clover and white chrysanthemums, then adds in orange roses, but pauses on choosing a fourth. He has to get the message just right and he isn't quite sure what else he wants to say, only that "think of me", "desire" and "honesty" aren't quite enough.

He winds up standing in the aisle thinking for long enough that the little old lady working the till comes shuffling over to him. "Need some help, dear?" she asks, her soft voice rasping slightly. She takes a look at the flowers he's chosen and smiles brightly. "Got your eye on someone special?" she says. "Maybe a nice young girl in one of your classes?" 

Billy feels his face twist in disgust. "Who these are for is none of your damn business," he says harshly enough to have her turning her nose up and shuffling back to her perch at the register. He snorts, muttering, "Nosy old bat," under his breath. 

After a minute he settles on calla lillies as his fourth flower - he's always wanted to call Steve beautiful to his face. He managed to call him "pretty boy" once, but only as an insult. He figures maybe this can help with that. Maybe the flowers can fill in for him. It's worked before.

With this in mind he takes a minute to properly arrange his flowers and to tie a yellow ribbon around them before heading to the front of the shop to make his purchase. The little old lady behind the register starts giving him the stink eye about halfway up so he sneers right back at her, almost daring her to say something rude so he can make her regret it.

She calculates the cost of his purchase with an eyebrow raised like she's only just decided anybody who would be on the receiving end of a bouquet from him is in for some serious bad luck. Like she would know. She's probably never gotten flowers from anybody in her entire life, even before she was old enough to fart dust. 

She hands over the debit machine with the deepest of sighs, like this entire interaction wounds her greatly, and he slides his card in like he deeply regrets not just walking out of the store with the flowers in hand, which he does. He really does. 

Maybe he will, next time.

"Have a lovely day, young man," she says as he hands the machine back, sounding like she means just the opposite. Billy, for once, doesn't respond to it, instead just takes his flowers and walks out of the shop. He has better, bigger things to do right now than punch this little old lady.

He starts his walk home excited, picturing a happy look on Steve's face as he hands the bouquet over, but the longer he walks the more the image of Steve's face in his mind warps and distorts into something unpleasant, something disappointed. 

Because what if… what if Steve won't like this? Won't like him? 

What if…? _ What if…? _

When Billy doesn't see Steve's car parked in front of (or behind or around the side of) their building he gets another idea. A better idea.

He steps inside their building with his usual level of confidence firmly back in place. 

This idea is perfect. 

\---

_ Not all couples who get together because of the disease stay together. Records show it's only on average about 70%. _

-from hanahakifacts.com

_ \---_

Billy waits for over two hours for Steve to get back. He spends about half of that time in his room, constantly fighting against his urge to get up and check the front door like a freaking dog waiting for his master to come home. It's pathetic.

Eventually, he winds up sitting in the living room playing video games and dying constantly because no matter how hard he tries, he just can't focus. He keeps checking the door, doing it just often enough to really hate himself for it.

He's about to get up and leave to go do something else, _ anything else_, when he hears keys clanging in the lock. He knows it's Steve, too; he's entirely too familiar with the way Steve is always banging around like a big, clumsy oaf. He really wishes he didn't find that just about as endearing as 90% of the other stuff Steve does, but, well. He does. So.

"Why do you not look more excited about this?" Robin says as the door swings open. Billy twists around for just long enough to see his flowers clutched tightly in Steve's hand. He can't stand to look at Steve's face, to see the reaction there but his ears are almost violently attuned to the words Steve says next. 

"I dunno. Why should I be?" 

He sounds… unimpressed and Billy's heart starts pounding double-time in his chest, loud enough he's almost worried it's audible over the sound of gunshots and his guy dying in his game. Again.

"Why?" Robin nearly shouts. Billy doesn't need to see her to know she's probably got her hands raised sky high. "Someone sent you flowers and you just… Come on, really, Steve? Someone clearly put a lot of thought into this." Billy's mouth goes dry. It might as well be a desert and his tongue a piece of dried up old cloth. God, he's pathetic. 

"Yeah? _ So? _" Steve says again. Billy can hear the telltale click of the kitchen garbage being opened and the heavy swish of something - his flowers, he just knows it - being thrown in. It has him dropping his controller and scrambling for his phone to open grindr as quickly as he possibly can. He's gonna need a bigger distraction after this. Video games aren't gonna cut it. Booze alone won't either. 

"Okay, but throwing them out, really?" Robin says, confirming every single one of Billy's worst fears. 

"Yep," Steve says as he walks past Billy, ignoring him except for a brief hand on his shoulder in greeting as he passes. The door to Steve's room opens and shuts, leaving Billy with his phone full of guys who aren't Steve. 

He feels something inside himself crumple and wilt, sucking in a sharp breath as something new, something painful take its place. He coughs as he picks out a guy on grindr who is short and has red hair, not at all his usual type but the farthest possible thing he could find from Steve on such short notice.

He'll have to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Floriography - the language of flowers  
Gardenia - secret love  
Clover - think of me  
White Chrysanthemum - honesty  
Orange rose - desire, enthusiasm  
Calla lily - beauty
> 
> If you like this story, please let me know! Because I put a lot of work into it and it wound up cracking me up but I'm really not sure if other people will find Billy nearly hitting a salty old shopkeeper nearly as funny as I do.


	2. Anonymity; Protection; Love (Bittersweet)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So… here is more of this. :)

_ \---_

_ In a study done in 1923 by the University of Chicago on 2,300 people afflicted by Hanahaki disease it was confirmed that the disease moves at different speeds in different people. _

_ In some it may take years, in others only months before the disease reaches stage four and becomes fatal. _

_ No one, even today, knows why. _

_-_from floripedia.com

_ \--- _

"You know you're really dumb, right?" Lucas says as he hands his freshly-packed vape over to Billy.

Billy just raises an eyebrow as he takes a long hit, waiting for Lucas to finish, 'cause by now he knows there's gonna be more and _ oh god_, is there ever. "You didn't put your name on the flowers," Lucas says. "That's dumb. You can't actually know if he doesn't like you 'cause you didn't put your name on the flowers I know you spent way too much money and way too much time on. And put a bow on. And made a card for. Because you're dumb. Like who puts that much effort into something and doesn't sign his name, like what did you _ think _ was gonna happen?"

He steals the vape out of Billy's hand after he's done with it and draws in as much smoke as he can just as Billy starts coughing like he's brand new and never smoked before which has Lucas mimicking the eyebrow raise Billy had just given him. "You okay there, man?" 

Billy nods as he coughs. "Yeah, I'm fine," he says between coughs so horrifically bad Lucas is almost expecting him to pass out or cough up a freaking lung. "Hand me a controller," Billy says, voice raspy and freaking croaky like he's a goddamn frog.

"Are you sure you can -" Lucas starts to say, "Are you sure you can play video games right now?" even though what he wants to say is, "Are you sure you don't need a doctor?" because he's never seen Billy cough like this, not ever. Like, it's not good. It's _really, really_ not good.

"Just-" Billy grunts, cutting him off. "Give me a controller." 

Lucas does and they sit in silence, playing _GTA V Online_ for five whole minutes before it hits Lucas like a brick to the face. "You're gonna do it again, aren't you?" 

Billy grunts again as in-game he rolls his car over the edge of a bridge. "Probably," he says.

"Are you at least gonna put your name on it this time?"

"Probably not." Billy's game character - a big, beefy looking motherfucker with an outrageous pink mohawk, too many tattoos and pink board shorts - jumps out of his car as it catches on fire and he runs away. It's weirdly fitting for the moment.

"You are single handledly the most hopeless gay I have ever met," Lucas says, biting and incredibly fond all at once. 

_ \--- _

_Hanahaki disease was first reported in 1889 when a nineteen year old girl, Emma Rochester, went to Bellevue Hospital in New York reporting she was coughing up flowers. She, of course, wasn't believed until the doctors there saw the flowers first hand. However, lacking accurate medical testing at that time, no one had any idea what was going on. _

_ After the girl died it was mostly brushed off as some sort of freak accident - doctor's notes have recently been uncovered saying that one of her doctor's thought, "Maybe she ate them, couldn't stop eating them and that's why she died." _

_ The second case of the as of yet unnamed flower spitting disease appeared in Chicago less than a year later. The doctors there were, sadly, even less helpful and the patient - Charles Andres - died a little less than a month after being admitted to Mercy Hospital. _

_ The disease spread quickly after that with cases popping up in all states and in cities and towns of all sizes, leaving no group of people spared the trauma and disaster that is the flower spitting disease. _

_ It quickly spread to other countries after that, with cases first being reported in Canada, then Venezuela, Great Britain, and Japan until eventually, all countries worldwide were burdened with the disease. _

_ There is a common joke in the medical community that x-ray testing was only invented so that doctors could finally see what was happening inside of these people who couldn't stop coughing up flowers. _

-from "Hanahaki: a History" by Heather+Thyme Books

_ \--- _

Steve sighs dramatically and momentarily pushes his face into the couch pillow he's wrapped himself around. "I'm just, like, the human personification of clown shoes, sometimes, I swear," he says.

"Uh, what?" El asks as she flops down onto the couch next to him, big bowl of popcorn in hand. It's tuesday, which means movie night at Max and Eleven's, which means popcorn - a thing Steve is usually very excited for because Eleven makes the best popcorn in the world, has some weird small town secret spice she puts on it every time that usually he can't get enough of - except for tonight. Tonight he's too depressed to care.

"He's saying he's a fool," Max says as she slips in next to her girlfriend and without Steve seeing her doing it, reaching across El and pressing a cold can of soda to the back of Steve's neck, making him jump and twitch.

"Hey!" he shouts, not entirely sure what he's objecting to, her comment or the cold soda to the neck. 

Max laughs.

"Why are you a fool?" Eleven asks, earnest as always. 

Steve groans and takes the soda Max is now handing him, cracking open the tab and taking a long sip. 

"Tell her, Steve," Max says, eyes glinting brightly. 

"I have a…" Steve stumbles over the words, takes a deep breath and focuses on not coughing. "Crush. On Billy." 

Max rolls her eyes. "No, he has _ flowers _ for my big, dumb brother and like an idiot -" 

"I'm going to deal with it!" 

Max pushes her shoulders back and gives Steve her patented "you will or I'll kick you" look. "You better," she says. She grabs a handful of popcorn from the bowl as Eleven sets it on the coffee table and chews it slowly, thoughtfully, before adding, "Besides, Billy needs someone to love him. Someone to soften him up a little." 

Steve swallows again and this time he swears he can taste the flowers making their way up his throat and still he fights against it. "Well, actually, I've never..." he says, uncertain. He doesn't quite know how to phrase this. "I've never seen Billy date anybody." He doesn't mention all the guys he's seen Billy bring home, but that no one ever stays the night - there are some things a sister just doesn't need to know about her brother. "Is there a reason for that?" 

Max snorts as she grabs another handful of popcorn. "No," she says quietly. "Not that I know of, anyway. I mean, look at him. There'd be a lineup out the door if he were ever open for business." She stuffs her handful of popcorn in her mouth and stares at the wall like it holds all the answers to all the questions of the universe. "But he never is." 

"He never lets anybody near him," Eleven says, voice soft and matching the quiet tone of Max's. "Because he's hurting." 

Max gets a love-struck look on her face, the same one she always gets any time Eleven says something thoughtful or sincere, so... it's a look Steve's seen a lot. Then Max is nestling in against El, resting her head on her shoulder like it belongs there and again Steve finds himself needing to take deep breaths to hold back the coughs threatening to tear him apart but also to hold back the jealousy that's suddenly flaring up within him. Max and Eleven's love has always been easy, always been simple, always been a love of gentle touches and kind words and Steve is jealous, now more than ever.

Because Billy isn't easy, Billy isn't simple, he isn't gentle; he's wild and he's brutal, he's sharp and he's… he's… everything Steve has ever wanted in his entire life. And he knows what he said, knows he said he'd do something about it, but… he can't. He's a coward and he can't.

"Okay, somebody pick a movie, I can't handle this emotional crap anymore," he says just before he starts coughing violently. 

Max lifts her head from El's shoulder to nod solemnly before getting to her feet to shuffle over to the bookcase full of vhs tapes that sits along the back wall. She picks something out worryingly quickly and heads right back over to the tv to put the tape into the vcr. 

Seconds later the music swells as the screen flickers on and Steve recognizes it almost instantly - she's picked out one of her favorites, _Midnight in the Garden of Your Love,_ a trashy, hanahaki focused rom-com from the early 2000's, one of those ones with the cute misunderstandings and the romantic leads making heart eyes at each other in secret before finally getting their shit together just before the end and then getting their happily ever after. 

It's ridiculous and Steve's always hated it but he hates it more now both because he knows, like deep, deep down in the furthest reaches of his soul knows, that this movie isn't how his life is going to play out and also because he knows Max is trying to make a point by having picked it. 

And if the movie wasn't enough by itself, the smile Max gives him as she settles back into Eleven's side definitely gets the point across because Max is like the human equivalent of a sledgehammer more often than not and it makes Steve wants to throw his unfinished soda at her but he winds up settling for coughing through the entire intro scene instead. 

_ \---_

_ Floriography - the language of flowers - first started being taught in schools in North America in the 1940s as a way for people to better understand the possible meanings behind the types of flowers people commonly cough up due to the disease. _

-from hanahakifacts.com

_ \--- _

Steve comes stumbling into the apartment at the most musically perfect moment possible, just as Rob Halford is singing:

_ Seek him here, seek him on the highway, _

_knowing when he'll appear, all await, _

_engines ticking over, hear the roar _

_as they sense the fear. _

Steve sticks his head in through Billy's open door, his nose scrunched up as he says, "This song is weird, man." 

Billy glares at him. "I know you _ did not _ just insult Judas Priest." 

Steve steps into the room, almost smacking an elbow on the door frame as he goes and Billy has to fight himself to keep from smiling. 

"The song doesn't even make any sense," Steve says as around them the song screams: 

_ Black as night, faster than a shadow, _

_crimson flare from a raging sun, _

_an exhibition, of sheer precision, _

_yet no one knows from where he comes. _

"It does if you know the lead singer is gay," Billy says, his legs parting without his meaning for them to and his arms sliding forward so they're resting on his knees, his whole body opening up to Steve. It happens every time Steve gets anywhere near him and he's long since stopped fighting it. 

_ Hell bent, hell bent for leather, _

_ hell bent, hell bent for leather. _

Steve plops himself on the foot of the bed without asking and runs a hand through his hair. Suddenly, Billy feels his chest go tight.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Steve asks, his eyes shining mischievously like the little shit he is and god, Billy is so screwed. Steve has the kind of eyes that make Billy want to write poetry and he doesn't even _ like _ poetry.

But instead of admitting to any of this out loud, of course, he says, "You know, gay men wearing a bunch of leather. It's like a _ thing_." 

Steve cocks his head to the side with a confused look like he's never heard this before. "They do?"

"Yeah, they do." Billy practically gawks because while he might love Steve, that doesn't mean he's not absolutely freaking ridiculous sometimes. "How do you not know that? How do you just not know things? How do you survive in the world, just not knowing anything?" he says, incredulous.

Steve grins at the tirade and it sets something on fire inside Billy, gets him burning bright and wanting more. "And what do you do that you know about things like that?" Steve asks.

Billy raises an eyebrow and makes a _ tsk-tsk-tsk _ noise. "You're so unfailingly pedestrian it makes me sad," he says.

Steve shakes his head, that delicious grin still plastered all over his face and fires back with, "Your filthy mind makes _ me sad,_" and something in that grin, in the way Steve is sitting almost close enough to touch makes Billy brave. 

"No it doesn't," he says, all honey and charm. "You want it." 

Steve laughs, but it doesn't match his smile, it's harsh and sharp and not warm at all. "Whatever, dude." 

He gets off the bed and Billy feels something in him sink as the bed springs up with the sudden lack of Steve's weight to hold it down. Steve groans and says, "Anyway, I gotta go to bed. Goodnight," then turns and heads for his own room but not before pausing in the doorway, waiting for Billy to say it back but Billy… Billy is… he's… 

Stuck. Stuck staring at the way Steve's hair is standing on end from where Steve ran his hand through it, the way his long, lean fingers are gripping the top of the doorframe and the way the muscles in his forearm are tense with the way his fingers are gripping that door frame and...

"Uh," Steve says with a gulp Billy can hear from across the room. 

"Right," Billy says as their eyes meet. "Goodnight." 

Steve looks away first. Steve walks away and Billy starts coughing, quietly at first but then louder, his lungs burning with it and god, he can't breathe, he can't breathe, _ he's choking, _ he can't _ breathe _ and… 

...and he's coughing up something, his throat is convulsing with the force of it and he puts a hand to his mouth to silence the noise and wishes his bedroom door was closed, that no one could hear this. 

Then there's something in his mouth, something soft and wet and…

He parts his lips and spits whatever it is into his hand to find that it's a single red rose petal.

The coughing stops and he hears music playing from Steve's room - some goofy pop song he doesn't recognize - and feels immensely grateful even as he feels something heavy sprouting in his chest, feels his stomach sinking down beneath his toes. Steve didn't hear him. Steve doesn't know.

Steve can _ never _ know_. No one_ can know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bittersweet - truth
> 
> And the song lyrics in this chapter are from Judas Priest's "Hell Bent for Leather" which is absolutely just the gayest song ever.
> 
> Please leave a comment if you liked this chapter!


End file.
